MAC Submerged nail polish review, Alluring Aquatic Collection

As soon as I saw the amazing packaging for MAC’s Alluring Aquatic Collection – turquoise (squee), metallic (double squee), gorgeous pretend water droplets sprayed onto the casing (stop, seriously, can’t breathe) – I already knew I needed all of it in my life. In fact, I barely even bothered to look at the colours of the make-up itself before snapping each piece up, as every single synapse in me was squealing “BUY, BUY, BUY”.

Thankfully, the colours are all actually very nice, and my top nail polish pick – MAC Submerged – very much leads the flotilla of fabulous!

Submerged is absolutely the kind of stunning colour you would hope to find in a collection inspired by all things seductively sea-like. A deep metallic ocean-blue that flashes brilliant teal and dark indigo-violet in different lighting and angles, it’s what us nail polish folks call a duochrome (or more accurately here, a multichrome) – lacquer geek speak for a polish that shifts colour in a similar way to an oil slick. For Submerged, I’d say the colour shift is a bit brighter and more obvious in the bottle, but it’s still very pretty on the nail too.

MAC nail lacquer formulas can be a bit hit and miss, but Submerged is a good ‘un. On first coat, it seems a little thin and watery… before its jewel-like magnificence reveals itself for the second, whereupon the polish becomes opaque, self-levelling and all kinds of hell yeah. It can get a little brush-strokey, so make sure you go for thin coats rather than submerging (haha) your nail in too much polish, and it lasted for at least five days on me without chipping.

As ever with MAC seasonal collections, Submerged is a strictly limited edition lacquer – so if you plan on adding it to your treasures untold, I’d suggest you swim over to a MAC counter stat!

Submerged is basically what happens if you bottled the most beautiful colours from the ocean’s depths and turned them into a nail polish. With a tantalising shimmer here and a glistening glimmer there, in addition to the mesmerising colour shift between all those lagoon-like blues, aquas and purples, it’s the very best kind of sunken treasure you could wish for. A cavern of wonders instead… Shove off Ariel, this baby’s all mine!